Waste plastic materials can be derived from post-consumer and post-industrial sources from around the world. The waste plastic may include any composition of plastic materials available from waste processors, for example. Before recycling, plastics are generally sorted according to their resin identification code, a method of categorization of polymer types. For example, high density polyethylene has a resin identification code of 2, while polystyrene has a resin identification code of 6, for example. Upon sorting, the plastics may be baled. Approximately 10% of the post-consumer plastic waste generated is composed of styrenic polymers, including polystyrene.
Traditional processes for reclaiming styrenic polymer waste are often unprofitable and hard to scale to commercial size. As a result, styrenic polymer waste is often mixed with other non-sorted waste plastics through mechanical recycling or used for energy recovery, despite modern automated sorting equipments that allows isolation of streams with greater than 90% wt pure styrenic polymers. Currently, little to no polystyrene is recycled from plastic bales in the United States. Mechanically sorted bales containing high amounts of waste polystyrene are often land filled or shipped to China for hand sorting to remove non-styrenic polymer waste material for recycling. Further, traditional styrenic polymer reclamation processes are limited to producing reclaimed plastics that do not come into contact with food.
What is needed is a process for reclaiming styrenic polymer waste in a cost-efficient manner, whereby the process can be scaled to commercial size. Further, what is needed is a process that can produce reclaimed styrenic polymers capable of use with food products.